The Fertilization of Onoclea 1 2 . 
BY 
WALTER R. SHAW. 
With Plate XIX. 
T HE details of the process by which the sexual cells and 
their nuclei unite have not been exhaustively studied 
in very many plants. Most of the contributions to the 
subject are the results of investigations into the development 
during extended periods of the plants under observation, so 
that necessarily the particular subject of cell-conjugation 
and nuclear fusion has received proportionally less time and 
attention. This is more especially true with regard to the 
Characeae, the Bryophytes, and the Pteridophytes. 
Literature. 
The accounts of fertilization in plants all indicate that the 
process consists in the fusion of two nuclei in the resting 
condition. This has been described by Wager 2 for Cystopus , 
by Harper 3 for Sphaerotheca and ErysipJie , by Oltmanns 4 for 
Vaucheria , by Klebahn 5 for Oedogonium , and by Farmer and 
1 Prepared under the direction of Professor Douglas H. Campbell in the 
Botanical Laboratory of Leland Stanford Junior University. 
2 Wager ’96, p. 331. 3 Harper ’96, pp. 656 and 659. 
4 Oltmanns ’95, p. 401. 5 Klebann ’92, p. 252. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XII. No. XLVII. September, 1898.] 
T 
